2 Powerhouses Face Off In County Gop

Totten Again The Outsider

Donald Totten probably couldn`t be blamed if he feels like a victim of his own success.

The Cook County Republican Party in his tenure as chairman has evolved from a gentlemanly loser into a kicking, screaming, attention-grabbing winner, at least occasionally.

Along the way, though, Totten at times has looked like a shock-sobered urban cowboy getting bucked by a mechanical bull, wondering why he dropped a quarter in the confounded thing in the first place.

``He is the one person who recognized that the only way the Republican Party could be successful was by opening the doors and encouraging Democrats to join,`` said Richard Siebel, Northfield Township GOP committeeman and a member of the Cook County Board. ``Now he`s being asked to pay the price for that.``

Another Republican committeeman, Connie Peters of Wheeling Township, said Totten has ``worked very hard to bring the Republican Party into a very viable position. . . . I don`t think the reward for that performance is to be booted out.``

Peters, who declined to say Sunday night how she would vote, has the most votes of any committeeman under the weighted system based on the March 15 primary returns.

Yet, Totten, 55, a former state representative and state senator, has some things in common with 18th Ward Democratic Committeeman James Dvorak when it comes to angling on the outside for a way to get in.

A committeeman from Schaumburg Township since 1966, he managed Ronald Reagan`s presidential campaign in 1976 when the GOP status quo lined up behind then-President Gerald Ford. He tried in 1980 to wrest the seat of Illinois Republican National Committeeman from party veteran Harold Byron Smith, before backing off the fight.

Two years later, he ran for lieutenant governor against Gov. James Thompson`s choice, George Ryan. He finished third in that race, behind Ryan and former State Rep. Susan Catania. Undaunted, Totten considered, and dropped, a plan to run against former GOP Sen. Charles Percy in 1984. Totten often shot daggers from the Illinois Senate floor at Thompson, who was too moderate, and too much a big-spending governor, for the strongly conservative Totten.

But Totten insists he paid his dues before trying to make his own political stamp on state and national politics.

Totten was a favorite with the Reagans and with some influential Republicans, such as W. Clement Stone, who helped finance his campaign for lieutenant governor with checks for $150,000. He was a de facto Midwest patronage chief during the Reagan transition into the White House and was among four finalists for Secretary of Education.

But somehow, the big prize he wanted eluded him. The education post went to Terrel Bell, and Totten`s official thanks from Reagan is a seat on the International Joint Commission of the Waterways, which negotiates disputes between the United States and Canada.

Totten never won the statewide office that might have put him near even footing with Thompson, and now says he won`t run for public office again. The ultimate slap came in 1984, when Thompson beat out Totten for the post of state chairman for Reagan`s re-election campaign.

This year, Totten bucked the party establishment again, signing up early for the presidential campaign of his friend and conservative soulmate, U.S. Rep. Jack Kemp (R., N.Y.). The Kemp campaign didn`t make it to Illinois.

Totten took the reins of the Cook County GOP in September, 1985, the same month that Sheriff James O`Grady began to lay the groundwork for the campaign that launched him into prominence in political circles.

Totten, a 1955 graduate of the University of Notre Dame with a bachelor`s of science degree in mechanical engineering, is a former industrial plant manager and has a political consulting firm, Twin-T, that did work for the Kemp campaign. But party leaders say Totten devotes nearly all his time to party business. One sign of success: In 1986-87, the Cook County Republican Party raised more money than the Cook County Democratic Party.

In the last two years, the local GOP has raised $1.22 million, three times as much as it raised in the two years before Totten became chairman.

Yet some detractors say he has resisted the influx of ex-Democrats in the party. Despite Republican gains, the party still failed to find candidates to fill several ballot spots for judge and the state legislature in the recent primary. O`Grady, for one, lays that shortcoming squarely on Totten.

Totten, was working the telephones Sunday in his race with Dvorak, said:

``It still looks like we can pull this thing off. I feel pretty good about it.``

But, even some supporters fear that if Totten retains the party chairmanship, he will wield little influence because Thompson and his new Republican friends will ignore the party chair. Some say that Dvorak may have jumped too soon at the brass ring, but the eventual takeover by new Republicans is inevitable.

``A committeeman is only as strong as an officeholder regards him. If he`s ignored, then what good is he?`` said River Forest Township GOP Committeeman Richard Walsh, who has stuck by Totten. ``That`s the kind of pressure some committeemen are feeling.``

Another telling sign is that new Republican Edward Vrdolyak has confided to friends that he would just as soon see Totten retain the job because it would be less of an impediment to his quest for power in his new political house. Vrdolyak`s ally, 10th Ward GOP Committeeman Sam Panayotovich, is expected to vote for Dvorak, but Vrdolyak quietly fielded candidates for committemen against O`Grady-backed candidates in several wards. Dvorak, not Totten, was the target in those proxy battles.

Totten`s best clout came with his longstanding ties to Ronald Reagan, and the Reagan era is about over. The question is whether Cook County Republicans will want Totten to retire, too.